UPDATE: Bury this book by Pickton, says Crey about jailhouse memoir

There is an urgent need for a law in B.C. that would prevent anyone convicted of serious crimes from profiting from them

Don’t even think of buying the new book allegedly written by convicted killer Robert Pickton.

That’s the latest from Ernie Crey of Chilliwack, whose sister Dawn Crey’s DNA was found at the Pickton pig farm in Coquitlam.

He is furious that Canada’s most notorious serial killer may have penned a jailhouse memoir, called Pickton: In His Own Words.

“People have been asking how I feel about this. I am angry, upset and troubled by it,” Crey told The Progress.

The publisher, Outskirts Press, has since caved to public pressure.

“Outskirts Press has ceased publication of this book and is asking Amazon to remove the book from their website.”

It wasn’t just the bad press, though.

“We have a long-standing policy of not working with, nor publishing work by, incarcerated individuals,” according to the publishers.

Pickton was likely aware of their “no-tolerance policy” when he cooked up the scheme to use a ghost writer, they noted online.

“Outskirts Press apologizes to the families of the victims for any additional heartache this may have caused.”

Despite that, there is still an urgent and pressing need for a law in B.C. that would prevent anyone convicted of serious crimes from profiting from them, Crey said.

There is an urgent need for a law in B.C. that would prevent anyone convicted of serious crimes from profiting from them, he said.

“They need to move on this quickly,” he said, from a legal point of view, even if Pickton doesn’t stand to profit directly from the book sales.

“I want to destroy any incentive in future for a monster like him to even attempt to profit in this way.”

So how did the hand-written manuscript even manage to get spirited into the U.S. without Canadian corrections officials stopping it, he wants to know. Pickton is incarcerated at Kent Institution in Agassiz.

Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said yesterday they would look into how in fact the manuscript was removed from prison.

Crey is firing off a letter this week to the provincial officials, and the federal counterparts, to request that legislation be drafted to prevent such an occurrence.

“B.C. is one of the Canadian provinces that doesn’t have a law against profiting from horrific crimes,” said Crey, noting that Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan have the legislation on the books.

“You know know what? He had his day in court,” said Crey. “He hired some of the best legal minds to defend him, and he exhausted his appeal. He was found guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and will spend the rest of his life rotting in prison.”

Crey is asking people he knows to strike back.

“Friends, would you kindly drop an email to Amazon.com asking them to ditch the ad for Pickton’s book? Thank you,” Crey wrote on his Facebook page over the weekend.

Hours after that went up, Amazon took down the ad and scrapped the URL link.

In the 144-page book, published in the U.S., Pickton denies full responsibility for his crimes.

“There are two issues with this. One is that he’s been convicted of horrendous crimes and yet he is making a plea for public sympathy. In this way he wants to go around the courts, and around the families to plead with the public that he is somehow innocent.

“The second is that he is actually hoping the book will make some money. One of the ways to prevent it is to bury the book.”

It’s ironic, Crey noted, that every time he publicly comments or reacts to a situation like this, he places himself in the killer’s service, in a sense.

“But also there is no way around it. This gives me a chance to lean on the government, so the families in the future whose relatives fall victim to a monster, will be protected, and there is no chance to profit from a book or movie based on his crimes.

“I’m happy to put myself in the service in that sense.”

Although there is “legal closure” in that Pickton was sentenced for life with six counts of second degree murder, but at the same time there is no real closure for the families of his victims. Crey has been advocating for a national inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women for years, at one point calling for at least a “roundtable” on the topic.

“There is no leaving behind the horrible memories of his cold-blooded murders committed without compassion in a psychopathic killing spree. It has put all of us in our own type of prison.”

Although Crey is a former social worker, he admits he is not an expert in clinical psychology.

“But I do know that psychopaths like Pickton kill because they take pleasure in the power derived from killing. He delighted in it. Now he’s getting another chance to taunt and stir up feelings by troubling the families.

“I am hoping we can put an end to it.”

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